Family Tree

If you ever find yourself in a room with Father Edson Wood, don't start bragging about your sort-of-famous second cousin. Father Wood might trot out his great-uncle Charlemagne. Don't tell Father Wood that deep in your past someone in the family signed an obscure township ordinance. One of Wood's ancestors, King John, signed the Magna Carta. And 15 of the 25 nobles who signed the document to keep John honest also are on Wood's sequoia-sized family tree. The 40-year-old Augustinian priest's search for his family's past started about four years ago when he was assistant to the president of Catholic University in Washington, D.C. In one of Father Wood's classes was Chris Haley, nephew of Alex Haley of Roots fame, who would tell the most fascinating stories about the work his uncle had done.

The writing on the green leaflet was sketchy and shaded in black. It read "Searching for Your Roots," and it sounded almost like a trip through past lives, or an astrological charting of your suns, moons and stars. What it turned out to be was not quite so exotic: a lecture on the basics of genealogical research presented by Shawn Aubitz Wednesday night at the Tacony branch of the Free Library. Aubitz, an archivist with the Philadelphia Branch of the National Archives in Center City, introduced his topic by emphasizing the sometimes insurmountable task of doing what he does.

As the crowd of people talked, laughed and embraced in Croshaw Park, Oren Davis walked back and forth, snapping pictures. He said he wanted to remember everyone he met that day. That might have seemed a bit unusual - he was at his own family reunion. "Oh, I don't know half of the people here," said Davis. "Our family is so spread apart that some of us barely ever see each other. " Davis, who lives in North Carolina, was just one of 86 members of the Davis clan that had gathered in Wrightstown during the Fourth of July weekend for its first official family reunion.

When she saw the expressions that came over the faces of the children last Sunday, the sheer fascination they showed, Ann McCay knew that her work had been worth it. A family tree - a scroll bearing nearly 300 names, the product of countless hours of genealogical research in the last four years - was spread the length of a half-dozen picnic tables at Hibernia Park in West Caln Township. It was the centerpiece of a Father's Day gathering of relatives who, until recently, had no idea that one another existed.

Tucked safely inside the covers and between the pages of photo albums and scrapbooks, Florence Houston stores her memories. Houston has collected stacks of photographs - some faded, some sharp, many in color, others in black-and-white. In the living room of her Camden rowhouse, she sifts through them, chattering contentedly about each, vividly describing people long dead so that for the moment they seem close by - their departure forgotten. They were all kin, members of the Primas family, her mother's people.

Paul Pennypacker's family tree reads like the index of an American history textbook. The Tredyffrin police chief is the descendant of a Pennsylvania governor, a Pennsylvania canal commissioner, two members of the Pennsylvania Legislature, a U.S. senator from Virginia, a Revolutionary War U.S. Army major general, a state treasurer in Tennessee, two Civil War generals, four Civil War colonels, 22 Civil War commissioned officers, and more than 100...

Because a couple of large oak trees take up most of the airspace in our garden, I have to make a pilgrimage to the Morris Arboretum from time to time to see my very favorite large tree, the katsura. Cercidiphyllum japonicum is native to East Asia. Paul Meyer, Morris Arboretum curator, thinks the largest Morris tree, which is now about 70 feet tall with a spread of 100 feet, was probably planted in Chestnut Hill around the end of the 1880s. John and Lydia Morris, the brother and sister who started the arboretum on their private estate in 1887, would assist plant collectors in financing trips and receive seeds in return.

Is your name Buchman, Kramer, Ziegler or Schwartz? If your name is of German, Polish, Baltic or Russian origin, and if your family came to this country between 1850 and 1914, it's possible that detailed records of your ancestors' immigration to America are yours for the asking in Hamburg, West Germany. The search for clues to your family's roots can personalize a trip to West Germany, making for an interesting adventure that goes beyond the usual European vacation rounds of museums, historic sites and restaurants.

We were alone above the river, on a tiny slippery path in the Columbia River Gorge. Above us was a steep cliff face that narrowed the sky to a sliver. Across the ravine was an endless cascade of trees that engulfed the mountain range in the distance. But nobody in our group could focus for long on the breathtaking scenery. That's because to the right of the path was nothing but air, a straight drop of several hundred feet. We kept our eyes to the front and clung to the thin cable railing fastened to the rock wall.

More than 175 parents, children, siblings and cousins representing a dozen states and four countries met - some for the first time - at the Tsvilikhovsky-Tonkonogy family reunion in Lafayette Hill last weekend. The family boasts many distinguished members along its branches, including the late journalist I.F. Stone; several rabbis and scholars, and 95-year-old Bertha Waisban, one of the first women to graduate from Temple Law School in 1926. Though many cousins were meeting each other for the first time, most knew names from the "Family Flyer," a newsletter sent to all Armons, Bibermans, Borisons, Burrisons, Feinsteins, Hermans, Specters, Steelmans, Tinkelmans, Tonkonagys, Tonkonogys and Tsvilikhovs by Lou Stone (of the Feinstein branch)

Clarence Still Jr., 83, of Lawnside, a community historian who was a member of one of South Jersey's best-known African American families, died Friday, May 4, after a long illness. Still, a founder of the Lawnside Historical Society, lived on an expansive property on Oak Avenue where he hosted the Still Family Reunion, an annual event that draws family members from all over the United States. The Still family tree includes abolitionists, preachers, doctors, scientists, professors, composers, Tuskegee Airmen, and professional athletes.

Sesame Street Live: 1-2-3 Imagine! with Elmo and Friends is in town through Sunday at the Liacouras Center. The plot of the show begins with Sam delivering the mail to Sesame Street and sharing a secret that Elmo and his friends can go on an imaginary journey to visit their pen pals if they use their imagination. Ernie becomes captain of the Good Ship Rubber Duckie, and Elmo plays drums in an African rain forest. With the power of imagination, kids will learn from Elmo and his friends that they can fulfill their dreams by using their imagination.

THIS IS A basketball accomplishment Craig "Poppy" Slade can sink his teeth into. Yes, all of them. That revelation might surprise the folks who saw Constitution, which now boasts a championship in only its third Public League season, battle Math, Civics and Sciences Charter in a quarterfinal back on Feb. 18. Two minutes before halftime, Slade planted himself in the lane at the north end of Southern High's gym and took a violent-contact, elbow-first...

Reliving history can be a revelation. While doing research last year for "Portraits of Civil War Heroes," the first of five annual compositions planned for the Rosenbach Museum & Library's commemoration of the war, jazz pianist and composer Dave Burrell, the museum's musician-in-residence, discovered that despite his later prominence, Robert E. Lee failed to win any significant battles during the struggle's first year. "I thought, 'This isn't good for the war, it's not good for the South, and it's not good for me,' " Burrell recalls with a burst of laughter.

MERELY PLAYING quarterback will prove to be enough of a challenge for La Salle High's Matt Magarity tomorrow. But as the Explorers begin their first possession in a Class AAAA state semifinal vs. North Penn, set for noon at Northeast High's Charlie Martin Memorial Stadium, the 6-1, 200-pound senior would not mind - momentarily, of course - performing double duty as the offensive coordinator. You see, Magarity needs just 3 passing yards to reach 3,000 for his career. And his preferred first pass would be . . . "Probably one to Colin Buckley," he said, referring to the star senior wideout.

For as long as anyone could remember, Angela DiMedio Carlino wanted to put down the recipes that built Carlino's Market into a suburban institution. The holiday soup, the wedding peaches, the meatballs. "She always said, 'I'm-a-write a cook-a-book and I call it Wanna Taste? ' " said Jill Santoro, who has worked at Carlino's for 15 years, lovingly mimicking "Mama" Carlino's thick accent. Mama Carlino died Nov. 4, 2007, on her 70th birthday - two days after her family opened a second store.

IT DOESN'T portend well for the "new" Daily News if, as one letter-writer suggests, Gary Thompson and Stuart Caesar are no longer worthwhile. Meanwhile the person is just fine who decided that it's a "Great Idea" to take your pit bull (Chihuahua, Lab, cocker) to work, lunch or shopping. Something is wrong with this picture! I hope Howard Gensler isn't moving on. I love Howard - he's funny and sharp. And why don't you carry Walter Williams' column? The DN did in the past but caved to the complaints of readers not half as smart as he is, and same with Michelle Malkin.

WE LOST Franny two weeks ago. My sister was the middle child in our family, the fifth of nine kids, our mascot, moral compass and comedienne. I feel like I've lost a limb. Franny's death from cancer at 50 was so different from my mother's death, six months ago. Mom was 84, had endured many age-related maladies and spoke often of being ready to go to Jesus. I buried my face in her neck and cried a river when she died. But in the days afterward, I was startled by how quickly a sense of peace eased my grief.

WHO SAYS YOU can't go home again? The world at large might think of former heavyweight champion "Smokin' " Joe Frazier as the quintessential Philadelphia fighter, the guy with the wrecking-ball left hook who went to hell and back three times with Muhammad Ali in the most celebrated rivalry in boxing history. But the Joe Frazier story didn't begin here in Philly, where he didn't arrive until he was a teenager with big dreams of someday punching his way out of poverty. No, Joe Frazier's improbable path to fame and fortune began much earlier, as a child field laborer on farms in and around his birth city of Beaufort, S.C., where the youngest of Rubin and Dolly Frazier's 13 kids was instilled with values baked and hardened under an unforgiving Southern sun. "Maybe 6 or 7 years old," Frazier, now 66, said of the age at which he entered the workforce.

Cruising down Oak Avenue into the historic borough of Lawnside, it didn't take long to spot the sign. 141st Still Family Reunion: An American First Family. Can't argue with the first-family part. The Still family tree may have had its roots in slavery, but has managed to produce quintessential American achievers - abolitionists, preachers, doctors, scientists, professors, composers, Tuskegee Airmen, and professional athletes, among others. But the festivities going on in Clarence Still's expansive backyard in the Camden County town over the weekend were anything but still.